The National Health Service could face a ‘winter of woe’ unless hospitals and local authorities tackle delayed discharges, surgeons organisation says.
NHS England performance data published yesterday shows the number of delayed days for transfers of care in July 2017 was 181,692. This was up from 178,042 days in June.
Commenting on the figures, Professor Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said the high number of delayed days for transfers ‘does not bode well.’
‘Hospitals and local authorities must look carefully at what they can do to speed up the transfer of patients between different types of care,’ Professor Alderson said.
‘NHS leaders have already warned of a bad flu season this winter. Unless the backlog of delayed discharges begins to clear before then, it is hard to see how the NHS will cope with increased demand.’
Local authorities have been given delayed transfer of care targets. However, they argue these are ‘undeliverable.’
Under new Department of Health guidance, county councils have to reduce delayed discharges from hospitals by an average of 43% within the next few months — double the target of London.
If the councils fail to deliver, the Government will withdraw extra social care funding promised in the Budget.
Responding to the latest delayed transfers of care figures, Cllr Izzi Seccombe, chairman of the Local Government Association’s (LGA) Community Wellbeing Board, said: ‘Councils are doing all they can to get people out of hospital and back into the community quickly and safely.
‘But instead of treating the symptoms of the pressures on hospitals, councils want to be able to focus on the root causes, and to stop people ending up in a hospital bed in the first place.’
Cllr Seccombe warned the ‘last-minute’ setting of ‘unrealistic and unachievable’ targets for councils is unlikely to be effective in relieving pressure on the NHS, and pointed out that councils face an annual social care funding gap of £2.3bn by 2020.
‘The threat of reviewing councils’ funding allocations for social care if these are not met is unacceptable to local government because it takes resources from where they are most needed,’ she continued.
‘Even worse, NHS England is threatening to withhold core funding for vital social care services where councils have not agreed to the national target, even where this target is undeliverable.’
